Track Specific Elements
In MusicBee, the right sidebar is synonymous with the Now Playing Panel. Technically the panel components have two other potential locations (plus more for the Now Playing List), but by default everything is in the right sidebar. The configuration options for this panel are extensive even within the right sidebar. There are lots of examples below, but in the end experimentation will probably be the best way to get it exactly to your liking. You may find it helpful to start with one of the Quick Layout configurations and adapt it. Another good way to check out possibilities and get some ideas is to browse through the screenshots of Skins. If you're interested in even more layout options, in addition to or instead of the Now Playing Panel, see Playing Track Panel. By default, the panel only shows the Now Playing List and Track Information panels for Details and Lyrics. Other components need to be turned on via the Now Playing screen. The sidebar is shown here with all components turned on and in their default configurations. As numbered, the components are: # # Panel #Sidebar Header # # # Now Playing List Shows the playing track and other tracks from the same source. Which other tracks are shown will depend on your settings in Now Playing Preferences and possibly Auto DJ. The default view is a simplified version of Track Detail View. If shuffle is off and the list is sorted by play order (#), the order can be changed by dragging tracks. You can queue specific tracks next (even if shuffle is on) by right clicking on them and selecting "Queue Next." To tell MusicBee to skip a track, click the the blank space where the speaker icon would be in front of it. Queued tracks are marked with their position in the queue and skipped tracks are marked with a minus sign: As long as the Now Playing List is in the right sidebar, it will say Now Playing in the sidebar header. Next to that is the total time of the Now Playing List (or, if you click once on the header, the time remaining from the current track to the end of the list). No matter where the Now Playing List is, you can always right click on it and access the List menu, which offers a number of special functions: Now Playing Options With the main Now Playing Panel in the right sidebar, these are the additional choices for Now Playing List location: * Left Sidebar: Functions exactly as in the right sidebar, including header, except that it occupies a position under the navigation panel, like Library Explorer. Also like Library Explorer, you can double click on the header to maximize it to the whole panel (and the same to reduce it again). * Main Panel (bottom): Creates a separate section at the bottom of the main panel. * Main Panel (playlist): This is not shown in the Layout Configuration options, but if you select the special Now Playing playlist, the list will be removed from any other position in the main window (though not the floating window) and shown in the main panel. * Disabled: Unchecking the box in the Layout Configuration screen will disable the list everywhere except in Playlists and the floating window. You can change the layout of the list to a version of Album and Tracks view, which looks like this: Track Information The track information panels are the piece of the Now Playing Panel with the most options. There are three parts to Track Information (Details, Lyrics, and Artwork), which can be arranged in a vast number of ways between the two sidebars and floating windows. Track Info Options Whenever any Track Info panels are displayed, you will see this bar: By clicking on the bar you can toggle whether the playing track or selected track(s) is shown. The first thing under "track information" heading the in the Layout Configuration screen are these options: "Stack panels using tabs" is what you see in the example at the top, where you can only see one of Details, Lyrics or Artwork at a time. This option is only available in the right sidebar if the Now Playing List is also shown in the right sidebar. If it is moved elsewhere (or when viewing the Now Playing playlist), this automatically switches to "show all panels vertically." On the other hand, "stack panels using tabs" is the ONLY option in the left sidebar. "Show in player controls panel" requires that you have the player controls in the right sidebar. It ignores all Track Details options except for Display Fields, creating this layout instead: The height of the panel will depend on the number of fields you have displayed, and the artwork will automatically resize to fit the panel, so the more fields you display, the bigger the artwork will be. Lyrics can be in a floating window or in a tab. When Track Info is shown in the right sidebar without the Now Playing List, the sidebar header will say Track Information instead of Now Playing. Details Track Details is the section for displaying various tags like Title, Artist, Album, Composer, etc. The options for it dominate the configuration screen. The tab even has sub-tabs! Top Section On the right side of this section, you can set a custom font for everything in this panel. The options on the left relate to artwork. (Yes, in addition to the artwork options in both left and right sidebars, you can show artwork in the Track Details panel. This is where it is shown by default.) *'Fixed:' You can set this to any size you want. *'Fit to Panel' (with examples) *Do Not Display Artwork *...above Fields *...left of Fields *...right of Fields *...below Fields Display Fields This is where you can configure the information displayed to your liking. The first column is for any sort of lead-in you want for each line (such as naming the fields, like "Artist:"). The second column allows you to configure what is displayed in each line using meta-tags and functions just like in Naming Templates. This gives a huge amount of flexibility, including having multiple tags in one line or different tags for different types of music. For instance, this formula will show artist for popular music, but replace it with composer for the Classical genre category: $If(=Classical,,) The third column lets you set an opacity (% of foreground color vs background color) for each line, to create contrasts between different lines. The fourth column allows you to customize the fonts of individual lines (changing font size, adding bold or italics, etc). The final column dictates how many rows a particular line can take up before being truncated with "...". Here's an example of the above formula on the second line, multiple fields on the third line (year of composition and work, in this case) and 50% contrast plus italics on the fourth line (genres): You will find a variety of checkboxes at the bottom left of the Display Fields tab. These are special tags which are displayed graphically or are long enough to need their own lines. Also notice the box above the second column which says "split multi-value tags into rows." Hopefully this is self-explanatory: if there are multiple values for a tag, such as artist or genre, they will be shown as one value per row, ignoring the row span setting (this also causes the display artist tag to be ignored, showing the actual artist/performer/etc values instead). Here's another example, with all boxes checked but no artwork: Finally, at the bottom right are radio buttons for "Artist and Album link to..." As long as the or tag is by itself on a line (no formulas used), it will be turned into an active link to either last.fm (opens in a new tab in the internal browser) or a library filter for that artist/album, depending on which is selected here. Web Links In addition to displaying tags, you can create shortcuts to websites (which will open in MusicBee's internal browser) in your Track Details panel. You can add your own links, and use meta-tags for any site in which the literal tag can be used as part of the URL. Just follow the model of the pre-configured links. The first link you follow will always open a new tab, but if you want to reuse that tab rather than having other links create more tabs, change your settings to "open all links in the same tab." Lyrics Artwork Other Components Wavebar Spectrum Visualization Player Controls Other Positions Left Sidebar Floating Window Layout Configuration Panel For reference, here is the full Layout Configuration Panel. It can be accessed via Preferences > Layout (1) > Configure Panel (button), or by right clicking somewhere in the panel and choosing "Customize Panel Settings." Category:Layout